


The Echoing Footsteps of the Path Taken Home

by wetasspsandwich



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abusive! Revka Amell, F/F, Mild canon divergence, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, a lot of canon divergence in the Amell family, just bear with me on this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wetasspsandwich/pseuds/wetasspsandwich
Summary: The Conclave implodes, the Mage-Templar War rages, and the newly-born Inquisition seeks to stop Thedas from tearing itself apart. Hundreds of leagues away, the Hero of Ferelden just wants to come home.Runs parallel with the events from DA: Inquisition and follows the ragtag group of Wardens as they try to complete their mission and make it back to their families alive.
Relationships: Blackwall | Thom Rainier/Josephine Montilyet, Female Amell/Leliana (Dragon Age), Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Solas, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Leliana/Female Warden (Dragon Age), The Iron Bull/Cassandra Pentaghast
Kudos: 6





	The Echoing Footsteps of the Path Taken Home

It was the Warden-Constable’s turn to sit on watch the night the sky tore open.

Well, technically, it wasn’t. It wasn’t his turn at all. Oghren had already sat on patrol that week. He had sat on watch two nights ago, in fact. He’d remembered that distinctly, you see, because of two reasons. The first reason being that he wasn’t meant to sit on patrol that night either. Something about Velanna being ill and Oghren having to fill in for her. (As if she wasn’t a mage who couldn’t just heal herself or do whatever magic remedy shit mages do.) And the second reason being that that was the night he had spotted the wolf. 

He’d sworn he had. Not just any wolf either. Massive fucker. Biggest he’d ever seen. Near shat himself when he saw the size of it. It’d been standing at the entrance to a cave, just a ways away from the camp. Oghren figured he’d probably just come out of it, not that he had seen him do it. (He must’ve missed that in between tankard refills.) Regardless, there he was. And now, Oghren had to kill it. 

Oghren had to tredge over there, sword in hand, out into the cold air, away from his nice warm fire, on the night of Valenna’s patrol, to kill the fucking wolf.

He still went over though. Of course he did. He was a Grey Warden, and one who had fought an Archdemon, at that. Not much can scare a man after the sight of a beast like that, he reckons. So, over he went, sword in hand, but the damndest thing of all was that it was just standing there. (Almost as if it were waiting for something.) 

And it didn’t attack. Didn’t pay him any mind at all, in fact, not even when Oghren got real close to it. So, since it didn’t attack Oghren, Oghren didn’t attack it. They just stood together in the grass. And after a while, it just walked away. Damndest thing. He tried to discuss it over breakfast with Anders the next morning, but he had just laughed it away.

“Bullshit.” he had said. “There aren’t even any wolves this far west, Oghren.”

“No, there are. There have to be. I saw it. I swear.”

But Anders hadn’t believed him. He just laughed again, finished his bread, stood up, and said, “Maybe less of the drink, ey old boy?”

And that was the end of the conversation about the wolf. He’d just walked away after that, always something else to do. Off to do some Warden-y shit, no doubt. Everyone was always doing some Warden-y shit. Oghren was quite sure that’s exactly what Anders was doing on this night. That, or sleeping. He was probably sleeping.

Fucker.

He really wasn’t meant to take the watch tonight. The Warden-Commander had promised him as much. The morning after the wolf he had gone to her to complain about it. He complained about how he’d been on watch twice that week, and about the ache in his back from sitting on that blasted barrel all night, and about the green stuff growing back on his feet from all the water in his boots.

Maybe if he had looked a little harder, he would’ve seen the exhaustion on her face, or noticed that she had gotten thinner those past few weeks, or remembered that it was the Commander that took every other watch that week. And the week before that. But he hadn’t seen or noticed or remembered any of these things, or perhaps had chosen not to, and the Commander agreed to take care of it.

But then that morning came, and every bastard from Rivain to Tevinter saw the effect of the explosion at the Conclave. The sky ripped in two, demons pouring from the tear like coins slipping out of a purse, Divine Justina dead...

Needless to say, the Warden-Commander didn’t much feel like sitting watch after that.

So here Oghren sat, for the third night that week with a drink in his hand and freezing his ass off on that blasted barrel again. The picture of sacrifice, he supposed. Sacrifice. It was a Warden word, he knew. One of many; well, one of three. Oghren had never thought of himself as sacrificial. (Then again, he had never thought of himself as victorious or vigilant either.) Yet, here he was. A Warden. A Warden-Constable no less. Serving side-by-side for almost a decade with a young woman who might be the only person Oghren had ever met who was all of those words.

Oghren supposed he could be one of them just for one night.

So, Oghren pulled his cloak around his shoulders and filled yet another tankard of ale. He looked up again at the swirling, green mess above him and then back down again. He wondered what the hole in the sky meant for the world, what it meant for them on their journey. He wondered if the Warden-Commander would be okay in the morning. He wondered if Leliana had died at the Conclave, if she’d ever be okay again. 

Looking over at the cave, he even wondered if he might see the wolf again.


End file.
